Happy New Year from Flicka

remember to click on the pix to enlarge them.
I guess all the horses want their feature blog. here's one for Flicka. Flicka is not a rescue horse. I have had her since she was a yearling. She is about 15 now. Today while we (me & the horses) were waiting (patiently) for Greg to plow out the horse yard (I couldn't put them out for supper until he was done), Flicka and I went for a little ride in the snow. we went out and checked the pasture fence. It's all up, but boy are there some big drifts. I think I can let them go out there and run tomorrow though. Flicka was a perfect ride today. all by herself. out in the scary tundra. She is as close to a perfect horse as you can get. I have vowed that I am going to do less stuff with other people's horses and more stuff with the horses who live here at DoubleHP Horse Shelter. So the ride in the snow today is part of that. I smiled the whole time. I used to ride in the snow a lot. It was really beautiful. These photos don't have anything to do with my ride today. These photos are from last weekend. But they are of Flicka. My friend Flicka.

questions or comments,

email Shelter Manager Darci at doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

Lily December 2009

This is for all of you who have emailed me to tell me how much you enjoyed Prince's snow pictures. And it's especially for Pat who helped sponsor Lily for several months in 2009. And for Jennifer & Virgina Meadows and Rolling Meadows Farm of Lore City, Ohio, who helped sponsor Lily this month. Jennifer purchased a sponsorship through our ebay sales. She says "God cares for all of his creation and gives us dominion over it. Thank you for caring for the animals that otherwise would not have a chance. Merry Chirstmas and God Bless!!!"

I will post more snow photos for you over the next few days etc.. Everyone seems to enjoy them. And I guess now we will have snow for a long long time. I can't let the horses out in the pasture right now because there are some drifts that are covering up the fence line. So they just have to play in the horse yard and barn for now.

questions or comments, email me here. Darci, Shelter Manager doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

p.s. forgot to mention that I am unable to update our website doublehphorses.org until I can have a computer guy help me with it next week. I think we have to do some stuff to my new laptop to get it to work right.

Happy New Year

this is Butterscotch, a couple of weeks ago. the horses were playing in the first big snow.

click on photo to enlarge it. (and her tongue)

oh boy, sounds like we have lots of new snow coming this week.

DoubleHP annual meeting

Our annual meeting is scheduled for Saturday Jan. 16 at 11:30 a.m. at Big Ern's in Crooks. There will be a lunch menu. everyone on their own for food & beverage orders & bills. If you would like to attend, please let me know so we know how many tables to push together. We are not doing a big invite.
mostly we will name 2010 Directors & Officers
do a little treasurers report
the main issue will be brainstorming about what direction doublehp should take, in addition to continuing to care for and train the rescued horses that live here at our shelter.

Personally, what I think needs to happen around where we live are 2 things mainly:
1. horse owners need to quit breeding low-value horses if they are not going to keep them for themselves, and they need to quit breeding altogether if they cannot afford to feed, deworm, shelter, vaccinate, provide hoof and dental care, and train the horses they already have.
2. everyone involved in the horse industry needs to work toward decreasing the cases of inhumane treatment, toward ending the cycle of neglect, toward ending the irresponsible reproduction of these already-neglected horses. Emaciated horses standing around with no vet care is not acceptable. Period. These horses need to be helped. Their help needs to come sooner and it needs to be more aggressive; and these horses need to be treated like victims, like living beings who feel pain when they are not cared for properly, not as piles of dirt or bags of garbage. And their irresponsible owners, who need to be held accountable, need to know that treating horses like this is no longer acceptable. That inhumane treatment is a serious crime. Everyone needs to know that. Inhumane treatment to animals is a serious crime. And once it is treated that way, the number of cases will decrease. It's the only way that will happen.

So, anyway, how can DoubleHP in some small way address these issues?

or should we give up on the big picture, and just do some fun things that don't involve neglect, legal issues, any of that? maybe we should just be a horse lovers group who does fun things with the horses we have promised to care for.  what should DoubleHP do? if you have ideas or want to help us brainstorm and decide and then carry out those ideas, let me know.

thanks, Darci, email doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

computer crash

my computer finally died. we kept it going for about a year and a half once it became sick. I did have a back up hard drive and so I am really hoping the computer guys can get all my stuff off of there.
If you have been to the doublehphorses.org website lately you will notice no updates for a little while. it's because I have it saved on the dead computer. I do have a new little laptop that I am using right now. I am seriously considering doing away with the website. It's one that I do on my computer and upload it to the host. so it's not quite as easy as this blogspot. I may redo this blogspot to serve as our website.

Celebrate the Beauty

tonight, they say, will be 12 below, without figuring in wind chill. yes the horses are all in their stalls for the night. Saturday was a nicer day though. and I took advantage of it with my camera. I took 160 some photos until the battery died. here are some of my faves of Prince. Prince is the one with severe arthritis in his back right hock. as you can see, though, he enjoys life immensely. He is only 7 years old. he may make a trip to Iowa State next spring, where they have more advanced equipment, just to see if there is anything else that can be done for his hock. besides the injections that don't work as well as they used to. and some experimental type pills that I have not experimented with yet. anyway, as you can see, he is not moping around yet. He limps but I don't think he knows there is anything wrong with him. questions or comments, email Darci, Shelter Manager, doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

make sure you click on the pictures to see them bigger!

Sadness for Lindsey & Charity

We received an update from Lindsey in Georgia, regarding her horse Charity. The hole in her tongue is because of cancer. And Charity will be euthanized. Charity is lucky to have Lindsey for a horse mom, and now Lindsey will have Charity watching over her all of the time. We are very sorry for your sadness, Lindsey.
any questions or comments, email Darci, DoubleHP Shelter Manager, doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

Hole in horse's tongue

Photo of Star. Tyree's Gold Star AQHA. Almost exactly a year ago (I remember because it was soooooooooo cold, as it is now), one of my mares, Star, had a hole in her tongue.I blogged about it,
http://doublehphorseshelter.blogspot.com/search/label/Star
including photos of the cats Newman and Ralphie helping me with the meds. Star recovered completely and we will never know how she got that hole in her tongue. Tonight, I received an email from Lindsey in Georgia. Her horse has a hole in her tongue. Hers sounds bigger, probably more serious. They are waiting on biopsy. here is our communication so far.

Dear Darci,

I read your article about Star the horse who had the hole in her tounge. My horse is a 25 year old mare, she has been drooling nonstop, she eats so slow, and she is very off balance. I called the vet and he came out to check her. He opened her mouth and there in the back was a hole that went all the way through her tounge. He said she may have tounge cancer, and he is going to do a biopsy, and will let me know. My question for you is what exactly happened to Star, did she get diagnoist with tounge cancer? Is she still alive? If she did have tounge cancer, what did you do to treat her? I am very appreciative to any information you could give me. Any advice since you have gone through this. I just recently lost one of my other horses and I dont want to put down Charity, if that is the case, so anything at all you could tell me. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. Thank you for listening Darci.
-Lindsey

hi Lindsey,

My Star had a strange hole in her tongue that was very hard to find. It was underneath. The Vet could feel swelling and so looked and looked and looked and finally found it.
We will never know what it was. poke from something??? even a big sticker or stick or something might cause an abscess etc.
or sometimes they can even bite their tongue and cause things like this.
We were lucky. The vet flushed it several times and said if things don't improve in a few days we would need to xray her tongue to see if there was something in there.
Star began to eat again. and made a full recovery.
so if there was something lodged in there, it must have come out in the flush.
her hole was not all the way through. More like a big poke from the bottom up.
where are you? who is your vet? can they exray the tongue?
also, are her teeth ok?
I'm just trying to think of everything the vet told me and asked me and looked for when this happened here.
also, my Star could eat some soft hay while this was going on. I had some really soft orchard grass hay that she could eat kind of.
but she absolutely could not eat course stemmy stuff while this was going on.
do you care if I put this on my blog? people will be interested in this.
thanks, Darci.

Thank you for your prompt response. I dont mind at all if you put this on your blog. I am in the Atlanta GA area, and my vets name is Dr. John Elliott of Horner & Nash. Her teeth are in good shape, and he has done xrays on her. The hole is about a golf ball size, and I can stick my finger all the way through. He also flushed it, but that didnt seem to help. Charity cant eat any hay, or grass, she has a horrible time trying to swallow it, and ends up spitting it out. It takes her about three hours to finish breakfast, and another three for dinner. We are waiting on the biopsy and hopefully it will be good. If you have any further information that would be great. Thank you so much

Lindsey
 
oh wow, that sounds much bigger than what my Star had going on here.

are there any kind of hay pellets that will get soft with water, that she can eat?
sorry, I know you and your vet have probably covered all of this. I will put this on the blog.
oh, I hope it is just a really bad injury and not cancer.
stay in touch.
Darci.

any questions or comments, please email Darci at doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

if you need proof, watch this video

Here is another example of how law enforcement in other parts of our country are joining horse rescue groups in our feelings about horse neglect. This one is from Texas. Once again, they go in and remove the animals and very quickly charge someone with inhumane treatment. No messing around trying to figure out if it's really neglect or not. Of course it is! There is a video at this link (below) that is very graphic. If you have not watched vidoes like this before, you might want to think about it before you decide. The images stay with you forever. And they are not pretty or happy images. The media groups who are brave enough to show this stuff are high on my list of "good guys." For so long these secrets of the horse industry have been silent and invisible. But now the silence has been broken. The images are real. And it's only when we know the truth that we become motivated to voice our own opinions and take action to join in the mission to make things right. If you watch this video, you will be able to see that most of the horses going to slaughter here are very healthy looking horses. They are not old, blind, lame, skinny horses. There is no need for horse slaughter in our country. There is, however, a strong need for more responsible horse owners and especially more responsible horse breeders. When they breed so many horses that they don't have time to get them trained and so they just send them to slaughter instead of training them, well, it's time for them to quit breeding. To them, it's just like taking their garbage to the dump. To us, it's like getting paid to allow someone to brutally murder our friends.
When you go to this link, you will be able to read the story first. It won't start the video unless you click on it. If you are new to all the fuss about what's wrong within the horse industry these days, this video will open your eyes. In a wide way.
http://www.khou.com/news/Horse-neglect-cases-spike-78268742.html


If you have questions or comments, you may email Shelter Manager Darci at doublehphorses@alliancecom.net

more info. about hunting safely around horses

here's another post about hunting around horses and buildings. If you would like to talk to Shanna about this, email her at shannanevada@yahoo.com


Darci,

I just read your blog. I've been worried about hunters shooting into my CRP which lines my pasture. If anyone is intersted, they can contact the Game, Fish, and Park Service and request Safety Zone signs to place around their pasture. I contacted the GFP and they sent me six Safety Zone signs to place around my pasture. The signs do not incidate that where ever I put these signs is a no hunting zone. The signs simply indicate that people are near buildings/livestock. If anyone wants any additional information, just send them my way.
Thanks!
shanna

Hunting Safely Around Horses

I received this note a couple of days ago. And I am happy to post it for Lynn.

Darci,

My name is Lynn Stoltenburg and I check out your page frequently. I appreciate everything you and your "family" of helpers do to protect and rehabilitate horses. Recently, we noticed one of our horses had a bad limp. Upon closer inspection, we believe she was shot in the right front shoulder, possibly with a 22. We hope that it was not intentional, but would like to remind hunters to be extra careful during this hunting season. Our horse was probably shot by someone who was out shooting at signs, not actually hunting. Their
carelessness and deliquency has caused a great deal of pain for our horse and my 16 year old daughter who thought her horse would have to be put down. Our vet says that with time and TLC this injury should heal. We hope that no other animals are injured, wether intentionally or accidentally, during this hunting season. Because so many people read your blog, maybe you could help to remind hunters to think before they shoot. Thanks for all you do!
Lynn Stoltenburg
If you have questions or comments, please email Darci at doublehphorses@alliancecom.net